‘Are you more likely to die from a shark attack or falling aeroplane parts?’
Cognitive psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman found that participants were more likely to answer ‘shark attack’.
Shark attacks are dramatic, widely reported in the media, and tap into fear which neurological and behavioural studies found to be the most impactful emotion on memory. In contrast, stories about falling aeroplane parts are rather obscure. The cognitive fallacy of believing something is more common simply because it comes to mind more easily is known as the availability bias. The chance of dying from falling aeroplane parts is thirty times higher than the chances of being killed by a shark.
The effect of emotional salience and availability on memory recall is relevant to the ongoing Covid pandemic and at times drastic attempts to control it. Vertical phone footage of a frail grandmother on life support equipment carries a higher emotional impact than stories of financial hardship and social isolation.
However, both financial hardship and social isolation are key factors that worsen people’s existing physical and mental health issues and increase their chances of accruing more. The difference between these misfortunes is that mainstream media and politicians’ approval ratings feed on tragic episodes in the Covid epic. In contrast, the aftermath of economic hardship and alienation dribbles along in the shadows of everyday life.
The disproportionate emotional weighting of misfortune directly related to Covid also hinders logical thinking and perspective-taking. For example, a friend in New South Wales completing a PhD in biochemistry expressed her dismay at people’s resignation to contracting Covid. They said, ‘If I catch it, I catch it. I don’t think that’s a good attitude. If you catch it, you might pass it to vulnerable people who could get seriously ill from it.’
Factually speaking, this is obvious: catching Covid will increase your chances of spreading it to someone who could suffer serious consequences from it. However, the moral judgment against those who resign themselves to the possibility of infection is 1) unrealistic, given the high rate of infection in NSW and 2) fails to account for the context that such resigned people are in. Many may live alone or be the sole provider for their household. Few can afford to obtain all goods and services via home delivery.
Thus, the unabridged version of the seemingly insensitive ‘if I catch it, I catch it’ mentality is: ‘I will take every precaution to decrease my chances of catching Covid (e.g. keeping distance between myself and others, limiting time outside the home, etc.) however, my dependants and I have only me to keep the household running. If I contract Covid in the course of essential daily activities— I catch it.’ Given the full context, pity is a more appropriate response than moral blackmail and shame.
Yet the category of people vulnerable to serious complications from Covid has been repeatedly invoked as a justification for sudden and undemocratic decisions during the pandemic. ‘What?’ Supporters of policy X might ask, ‘You don’t support X? So you want everyone’s grannies to die?!’
Debate dissolves once any sceptical remark can simply be shut down as villainy.
This article is not an attempt to take sides on any Covid-related controversy such as vaccine mandates or border closures. It is merely a reminder to be aware of the cognitive biases and emotional blackmail that political actors exploit to further their own aims and sense of moral superiority.
At best, excessively bending to emotional appeals may lead to unfavourable outcomes on both medical and economic fronts.
At worst, illusions of moral superiority may pave the slippery slope to scapegoating, dehumanisation and justification of unethical acts against those pigeonholed as immoral outliers.
Controversial conditions such as vaccine mandates and the exclusion of unvaccinated people from certain venues may be justified in some cases. However, to automatically applaud such demands as moral justice attributes intentions to people whose decision-making processes and situations may be more complicated than we can assume. That is a fallacy of emotional reasoning.
